What do you mean, ‘burnout’ ?

Posted: 22 July 2019

After I got out of uni, I needed a job. I got what I thought would be a filler job at a software company on their service desk, answering phone calls, logging incidents, and going home at 5:30.

But I knew I needed more of a challenge. There was a graduate scheme starting at the same company. I started doing extra projects outside of my normal job to get myself noticed – and it worked. A few months later, I started work as a graduate commercial manager (I’ll go into more about what actually entails another time). I learned a huge amount about drafting contracts, negotiating deals and generally how to deal with people.

But after two years, that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to test myself and fly solo without someone always checking my work. I got promoted and became the sole commercial manager for my company in the UK. I learned how to manage my own time, and brutally prioritise tasks when there wasn’t enough of it. When deadlines came round, I stayed late to get the job done.

But after another year, I still felt like something was missing. Despite all the praise I was getting, I still felt like I could be better at my job. So I took a part-time law conversion course at the weekends, studying around 20 hours per week on top of 50+ hours of full-time work. I learned all the theoretical principles behind what I had already been practising, and a lot more besides.

Two years later, when I finished my exams, I was exhausted. But with all my new knowledge, I knew I was ready to take my career to the next stage. My company signed off another promotion, this time to the position of legal counsel, and I was all set to move to London. You could say my career had taken off. You could say I was flying.

Then I arrived at work one day, and sat down at my desk. Everything was fine, except that my monitor seemed kind of far away. And the words on it seemed to slip out of focus, as if in a heat-haze. And that whenever anyone said anything to me, I had to make them repeat it two or three times before I heard them properly. And that it would take me a whole hour to type one sentence. And that it would take me three hours for me to make a simple decision.

And that it wasn’t just one day when that happened anymore, it had been two weeks of sitting at my desk in a stupor, hoping like hell no-one would notice (only one person did).

Admitting there was something wrong was the first step in a process that I’m still going through. Two doctor’s appointments, three meetings with HR, and four counselling sessions later, I had a slightly better idea of what had happened.

If you don’t know what burnout is, you can read the much-shared article that turned it into such a buzzword here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work

If you want my personal definition of it, its this: burnout is your body and mind quietly shutting itself down in response to an unsustainable lifestyle of overwork and overstress. It’s essentially your subconscious reminding you that no matter how much you think you love your job, that love is not enough to sustain your wellbeing. It’s basically your inner-self downing tools and going on strike with placards that read: “There’s more to life than work and booze!” and “Filling up your time won’t fill up your soul!”

At the start of this all, I thought taking two weeks off work would be more than enough to get my life back on track. After two weeks, I went back to work thinking everything would be fine. It wasn’t. I broke down in tears.

My company was amazing – they basically said to take off as much time as I needed. They wanted me better, and they wanted me back, no matter how long it took.

But after five weeks, I knew what I needed to do. I knew that if I took enough time off, and had enough counselling, and improved my work-life balance enough, that I’d eventually get better. I also knew that ‘eventually’ just didn’t cut it. Not for me.

At the time, I felt queasy at the thought. Often, our jobs are such a huge part of our identities that quitting them is like quitting a part of our personalities. A big part.

But that’s what I did. I handed in my notice (in the end, my company were good enough to give me a 7-month career break instead).

That was three months’ ago. Since then, I haven’t worked. But I have done a lot of planning.

Tomorrow, I leave for Thailand. Then Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore and Australia. And a few more places after that.

Believe me, I don’t think I’m going to ‘find myself’ in Asia – I’m far too cynical for that.

But there are balances that need to be redressed. There are missed experiences that need to be had. There is a part of my life that is missing, that needs to be lived. And now’s the time.

If you want to know how all that pans out, you should read this blog. I don’t know how it will end, or what the milestones along the way will be. But I do promise to share it all with you.